This invention relates to steam cooking utensils and in particular to a divider basket for such utensils which can be used to partition the cooking bowl thereof so that different foods may be steamed simultaneously.
The use of steam cooking utensils has grown in popularity in recent years due to a general health consciousness of the population. Foods cooked in steamers tend to maintain their nutrients.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,753 issued on Mar. 24, 1992 in the name of Stuart Naft and is assigned to the same assignee as the assignee hereof. This patent discloses a steam cooking utensil including a cooking bowl having a food support tray. In actual use, the steam cooking utensil disclosed in the cited U.S. Pat. No. can generally only be used to steam one type of food at any given time It has been found that users of the steam cooking utensil sometime desire to simultaneously steam more than one type of food. Additionally, there may be times when in steaming two types of food, one of the types of food should be steamed for a relatively short period of time and the other type of food should be steamed for a relatively long period of time. In such instances, it is desirable that the food that is steamed for a relatively short period of time be easily and readily removable from the steam cooking utensil.
It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a steam cooking utensil having a removable and adjustable divider basket that can be mounted within the cooking bowl so that two foods of different sizes may be simultaneously steamed.